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Privacy Policy

Carnegie Institution for Science

Privacy Policy, Updated May 25, 2018

Carnegie Institution for Science (“Carnegie Science”) is a non-profit institution established to encourage scientific investigation, research, and discovery and the application of knowledge to the improvement of humankind.

Carnegie Science is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring the integrity of the personal information you provide. We invite you to read our privacy policy to understand how we collect, use, and share your personal information and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used by Carnegie Science.

What information is collected, and in what ways?

Donors, website visitors, event attendees: We collect personal information when you voluntarily submit it to Carnegie Science. This could include your name, address, email address, and telephone numbers; credit card information may be collected when donation information is submitted directly to Carnegie Science, and not through a third-party vendor. If a donor, website visitor, or attendee of a Carnegie Science event contacts us by email, we will obtain an email address and a name. Providing data is required in these contexts in order for us to process your donations, requests, or to respond to your inquiries.

Interaction with third parties: We may collect information when you interact with us through third parties working on our behalf (such as vendors sending out event invitations or through introductions).

Other information that is available to the public: We may receive information that is available to the public that we use to tailor our communications with you or so that we can better understand you as a donor or potential supporter of the institution. This could include collecting general information about you that is publicly available to assess giving capacity and so that we may tailor our fundraising approaches accordingly.

Visiting our website: We may collect information from your devices (mobile devices, computers, tablets) that you use to access our website. The information we collect may include what you reviewed on the website and for how long, your device identification numbers and type, location information, IP address and information about a referral URL site. This information is likely obtained using cookies. Please see more information about cookies below.

Your information, unless otherwise specified, may be stored indefinitely. Carnegie Science does not store credit card information. You have the right to request your information be modified or deleted from our system at any time (see “How to access, change or delete your information”).

Why and how do we use your information?

Personal information we collect is mainly used:

To process your donations or other payments and verify any financial transactions.

To provide the services you’ve requested (such as receipt of newsletters).

To update you with important administrative messages about your donation, events, or services you’ve requested.

To comply with any regulatory, security or legal requirements (such as tax filings, attendance logs).

To keep a record of your relationship with us.

To tailor communications to your background and interests.

We may also contact you about the work being done at Carnegie and about how you can support Carnegie. You can opt out of any activity at any time.

What is the legal basis for using your information?

In some cases, we use your personal information because we need it to fulfill a contract or have your consent for such use.

There are other lawful reasons why we may process your personal information, including if there is a legitimate interest for Carnegie to process your information to help us to achieve our mission as a non-profit research institution. Whenever we do so, we take into account your rights and interests and will not process your personal information if we feel there is an imbalance.

With whom do we share information?

We do not trade or sell information that you provide to us with other organizations.

There may be instances in which we share your information with others. For example, we may share your information in conjunction with your sponsorship of a certain project. If we have a credible reason to believe that such disclosure is required by law, we may provide your information to law enforcement; to comply with legal processes; to protect our legal rights; to protect the safety or security of a person or the institution; or to protect against fraud, criminal acts, or misconduct. We may also share your information with companies that provide us with services, but only for the purposes of processing your donations, meeting your requests or providing invitations to events.

Sometimes, our business operations require that links be made available from the Carnegie Science website or Carnegie Science emails to other third-party websites, or that third-parties send emails on Carnegie’s behalf. The privacy policies of these third-parties vary. Carnegie Science is not responsible for the information handling practices of third party sites or services, and we encourage you to read the privacy notices appearing on those sites or services.

What are cookies, and how do we use them?

Cookies are small text files transferred from our website and stored on your device. Carnegie Science may use cookies to help make our website and its contents better for your browsing and use. The cookies may be session cookies (session cookies are deleted when you close your browser or leave your session) or persistent cookies (persistent cookies enable the website to “remember” who you are and your preferences even after you leave your session and close your browser).

Strictly necessary cookies are essential for you to move around our website and use its features.

Functionality cookies collect anonymous information that remembers your choices (such as your user name, language or the region you are in). They may also be used to provide services you have asked for.

Advertising cookies collect information used to deliver advertisements more relevant to you and your interests.

Carnegie collects a record of traffic data which is logged automatically by our servers, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, device information, the website that you visited before ours and the website you visit after leaving our site. We also collect some site, application and service statistics such as access rates, page hits and page views. We are not able to identify any individual from traffic data or site statistics.

How to disable cookies

You may be able to configure your browser or our website, application or service to restrict cookies or block all cookies if you wish, however if you disable cookies you may find this affects your ability to use certain parts of our website, applications or services.

How can you access, change, or delete your information?

If you would like to access the data that we received from you, or make corrections to it, you may contact us at the email address provided at the end of this policy.

If you registered to receive communications from us and later change your mind, you may ask that your name and contact information be removed from our distribution list. You can send such a request to the email address at the end of this policy.

The Privacy Policy may change so please remember to check back from time to time; this version (1.0) was last updated on the May 25, 2018. Where we have made any changes to this Privacy Policy, we will indicate this on our website.